Not sure how this will look on blogger, but I'm giving it a go.
But few in the town now have any memory of the man. Even the imposing structure in which he
lived seems to have become so familiar with age that it was barely noticed, and
the current owner was able to live there in relative anonymity.[L1]
Time had weathered the house, exposing some of its imperfections, but for the
better part granting its benediction for its ability to endure.
A decorative iron fence surrounded the property edge, which was lined inside
with evergreen shrubs that stood well above the heads of any passerby. The
evergreens, neither meticulously trimmed nor altogether abandoned to their own
designs, permitted only glimpses of what lay beyond, and even then only to a
person brazen enough to make his curiosity obvious. Such a person might have
seen the two figures waiting, might have seen the front door open, allowing the
visitors entrance.
[L2] A door made of
timber cut from virgin forests long vanished opened easily on brass hinges a
hundred years old. Whoever had crafted these items did so with the thought that
future generations would see and admire their labor. What they made was
intended to endure. What they built was built with pride, with a connection to
the craftsmen before them whose knowledge had fed theirs. What they made was
created with the conviction that their work would outlive them and speak well
of them. Their spirits in some way lived on in the works they created,
regardless of whose name was etched into the plaque placed upon it.[L3]
Dave Morse and Mindy Virgilio entered at
the bidding of Doug Slattery, their employer at the magic shop and now,
perhaps, a leader in more important matters.[L4]
The
November winds sought entrance as well, but Doug slammed the door quickly,
forbidding admittance to the winds of change and gusts of the moment that were
always seeking entry into this sanctuary of the enduring.[L5]
Passing through an anteroom lit by a
chandelier that betrayed a few cobwebs[L6] ,
they entered a large room that was not unlike Dave and Mindy’s living room,
though on a grander scale. But while their apartment was of necessity filled
with props and equipment they used in their magic performances, this room was
large enough to have collector’s items tastefully spread around the room, magic
memorabilia that enhanced the décor rather than dominating it. Amidst the
Victorian furniture—the only kind that would not have looked out of place in
such a house—were fine details, proofs to those who would know that Doug was a serious
collector and connoisseur of all things magic[L7] .
Upon the wall was a large poster
of Carter the
Great, promoting his vanishing elephant act. [L8] On
another wall was a Houdini poster, advertisement for his famous Milk Can Escape.[L9]
Below the poster, barely noticed between a settee and a large mahogany table,
sat a smaller milk can. Having knowledge of such things, Dave knew it to be one
that was used by Houdini’s assistants to fill the oversized milk can that
Houdini himself had escaped from.
The items in Doug’s sitting room
had a direct connection to the stories that inspired Dave to pursue the craft
of magic. Such Items were almost talismans of power to Dave. He would have
loved to linger longer in the living room to inspect what was there, but Doug
led them on towards a large wooden door, which he opened by sliding it into a
wall thick enough to easily accommodate it.
Beyond it was a room Doug
evidently used as an office. Here, things were less orderly, with piles of
papers, books, and magazines stacked atop props and tables. Large bookshelves
built into the walls were stuffed with books, the better part of them as old as
the house they inhabited. It was apparent Doug had more money for purchasing
rare items than he had time to properly classify and assess them. Such was the
cluttered disorder of the room that neither Dave nor Mindy took notice of
Johnny, a fellow member of The Beyond Show, seated behind a large desk. Johnny
was a fire performer who had shared a stage with them several times now. It was
not until Johnny rose to surrender his seat to its rightful owner that Dave
noticed him. The various tattoos that entirely covered his face acted as a sort
of camouflage, disguising the natural features of his face.[L10] “Welcome,” said Johnny, with an
unmistakable British accent.
“Please, have a seat,” said Doug
from behind them, closing the door they had walked through as if privacy was needed even here. [L11] “I’ve taken the liberty of inviting Johnny,
as well as Russell, who will be joining us via Skype,” he said, gesturing to a television
screen with a man that stared awkwardly towards them[L12] . “There are no secrets between us, and it
may very well be that your lives may someday depend on the abilities they
possess.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mindy greeted
the man on the television screen. The man seemed unable to meet her gaze, even
through the distance technology provided.[L13] It seemed that a certain youthfulness
clung to him, although close scrutiny revealed that he might be older than
Dave’s twenty-nine years. Perhaps his boyish shyness made him seem younger than
he was.
“Russell is not a part of The
Beyond Show,” said Doug, “not a performer. But he is an important part of what
we do. I hope you’ll soon have the occasion to get to know one another better.”
Doug walked behind a desk large
enough for planning a military campaign and began to fix himself a drink from a
mini-bar, offering the same to the others. Mindy declined, but Dave felt a
certain obligation to accept the friendly offer.
“Izzy won’t be with us today,”
said Doug[L14] , referring to the man who had recently
accompanied Dave and Mindy on a journey into the supernatural, accompanying
them, they were later told, at the instruction of Doug Slattery. “He’s
attending to some…business for me.”
Not waiting for questions, Doug
handed Dave a glass that tinkled with ice and said, “I suppose some answers are
in order. Of course, you must realize that answers are a rather difficult
commodity to come by when dealing with matters such as these. And the answers that
most approach the actual truth will be the most difficult to comprehend, let
alone believe. Even more than that, the answers that will best explain your
questions are ones you will be most resistant to.[L15] They will be the ones that attack some of
your most basic assumptions of life. But what answers I can provide for you, I
will. So please, ask away.”
Dave was unsure of how to start.
He was unwilling to aggravate Doug Slattery, who was both his boss and a man of
unknown abilities and knowledge. Yet Dave couldn’t afford to place trust in a
man who had kept secrets from him, worked from a covert agenda. Also, Dave was
angry at the idea that their lives may have been put at risk without them being
made aware of all the facts.
“What do you want with us?”
“You have certain abilities. I
have need of people who can see things others do not.”
“But how did you find out about
that?” Dave was feeling very exposed.
“You have your abilities, Dave, and we have
ours. [L16] Your ability to see things in your dreams,
that is something none of us can do. We—each of us—have our unique talents, all
of us able to pierce the veil as it were in some way. In your case, discovering
you was a bit of an accident. We weren’t searching for you at all. Word had
come to me of an amazingly accurate fortune teller, Jennifer Hodgson. I believe
you knew her?”
“Yes,” said Dave, remembering the
brief meeting with her when she was still alive, remembering also the look and
smell of her corpse a few weeks later.
“I sent a dear friend of mine to
learn more about her in the hopes that she could be of help to us. Sadly, he
never made it back alive.”
Dave shivered at the memory of
it. “An older gentleman? Short, thin, bald?”
“You knew Alan?” Said Doug,
surprised.
“I saw him…in a dream.” Dave
couldn’t suppress the memory, couldn’t keep the images of the old man’s
dismemberment from appearing in his mind’s eye. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” said
Doug, the realization playing across his face. “Remarkable. You’ll have to fill
me in on the details of what exactly happened. Poor Alan. He had three
daughters and several grandchildren.”
Dave sat silent for a moment, not
wanting to disrespect the old man’s sacrifice. But his questions were too
important to silence for long. And while Mindy had agreed to let him ask the
questions, he knew she wouldn’t allow him to be lax at the task.
“And that’s what you want us for?
To pick up where he left off? To do your work for you, whatever that is, until
we encounter a similar fate?”
“If I’d known the danger
involved, I never would have sent him. I would have gone myself. But there are
unavoidable risks involved with the ability to perceive what others do not. And
whether you choose to join with us or not, you won’t be able to avoid similar
situations.”
“I’d just as soon forget the
whole thing, if you don’t mind,” admitted Dave. “Not to sound rude or
ungrateful, but I have no desire to see things in my dreams. I’d like to go to
bed knowing that I’ll be able to sleep without nightmares that don’t go away
when I wake up. I don’t know what Jennifer Hodgson did, but she gave me that
power, and I’d just as soon be rid of it. Any chance you could help me do
that?”
“You misunderstand,” said Doug.
“But that’s to be expected. You’re relatively new to this. When I said you see
things others don’t I wasn’t talking about your dreams. Your dreams are merely
a consequence of your ability to perceive. Ms. Hodgson was able to share with
you her capacity for extra sensory perception precisely because you were
already ripe for such a thing. You were already seeing beyond the collective paradigm of the
society you live in,[L17] so it is only natural that you are able to
make use of powers that the existing paradigm does not recognize as possible.”
Dave shot a glance over at Mindy[L18] , who remained uncharacteristically silent.
It seemed that she recognized that the problem was his to figure out, he that
would have to live with the consequences.
“I don’t understand what you’re
saying,” said Dave. “Furthermore,
I don’t want to understand what you’re saying.”[L19]
“Oh, but you do. You want to see,
or else you would not see at all and we would not be having this conversation.
You have seen beyond the parameters that have been set for you by the culture
in which you live, and it has pushed back the limits of what is possible for
you. Power follows perception. No one can do something he cannot first
conceive.”
“But I don’t get—“
“There is a lot you won’t get
right now.” The voice came from the television screen, which had been
positioned so that everyone in the room could see the image of Russell, and he,
them. “That
is the very essence of seeing beyond the collective consciousness, to be made
aware of just how much you do not know. The artificial world that surrounds us
is filled with answers we believe we possess. [L20] It is important that you hear what is being
said now. Understanding will come later.”
Russell continued, his voice
sounding thin through the television speaker, “What you need to understand now
is this: every
era, every culture, suffers under the delusion that it, and it alone, has a
correct understanding of the world around it. [L21] They are, all of them—to a great
extent—wrong. Generally,
a society clings to the simplest narrative it can find to explain the world
outside and its relationship to it. [L22] It stumbles upon it rather clumsily, each
of its members working more or less blindly, unaware that they are working
towards a common purpose, cells oblivious to the organism they are part of. As
long as this narrative works, it doesn’t matter how accurate it is. Life went
on for those who believed the earth to be flat. Newtonian physics explained the
universe quite well for centuries. The problem is that no story adequately
explains reality. Eventually, the differences between perception and fact tear
apart the perception. Eventually, every society is undone by its inability to
correctly grasp life as it truly is. Like a building that sooner or later
crumbles due to some weakness in its infrastructure, every society collapses by
the sheer weight of its own incomplete understanding of itself.”
As Russell spoke, Dave noticed
that Doug was quite willing to let him speak for the group. While Doug was in
some way the leader of this group, he deferred to Russell as one who had the
greater understanding.
“What you are witnessing now are glimpses
of the larger world beyond the smaller dome that encapsulates our current
cultural understanding. [L23] The cracks in our imperfect little bubble
reveal things we cannot even comprehend, things we have sought to protect ourselves
from. We have built for ourselves a little ark where we are safe from the
storms of a great ocean, but the ark is not capable of protecting us forever.”
Sensing Russell had said what he
wished to say, Doug continued: “When a certain manner of thought is working for
a group, those within it are quite willing to see the world through the
parameters of the existing narrative.[L24] Thus a successful paradigm tends towards a
sameness of thought, for who can argue with success? In the last century or so,
our society has achieved unprecedented success. Never in the history of the
world has a paradigm led to such advancement of the human race. And success, as
it always does, leads to an unwillingness to have a different opinion. We begin
to accept as fact what we once realized was only a perspective. Why mess with
or question what is working so well?”
“More than an unwillingness for
different opinions,” it was Johnny’s[L25] turn to have a say. “An intolerance for
opinions that differ is more like it.”
“At any rate,” said Russell, “the
very success of our present generation has led to its inability to perceive of
different ways of looking at things. In past ages, in other cultures, people that
perceived reality differently than the rest were often persecuted, martyred.[L26] ”
“And now?” asked Mindy.
“Now? Now they simply do not
exist.”
“Don’t exist?”
“What you describe sounds like
what could have happened in the Soviet Union,” said Dave. He was not trying to
argue, didn’t believe he was in a position to argue. But he did seek to
understand, and so was unafraid to question. “Or Europe under the Catholic
Church in the Middle Ages. But life isn’t like that now. Nobody can control the
information we receive, nobody can control the way news is reported. We’re
free, in our country, at least. I mean, more free than most.”
“You tend to overestimate the
role of force in such matters,” said Doug. “Or will, for that matter, or even
awareness. People assume that since there is no dictator that sits over us that
we are all free to be individuals. But we’re not. Maybe we don’t realize it,
but we’re not.”
“We’re sheep in wolves’
clothing,” laughed Johnny. “All products of a Madison Avenue campaign that makes us think
we’re acting in our own best interests when all the while we’re part of the
machine.”[L28]
Doug was about to continue, but
Johnny was just starting. It seemed as though, while they were all speaking from a shared
pool of knowledge, each of them had their own interpretation of things. [L29] Dave was curious what Izzy might have added
to the conversation.
“A century ago, all houses were
made individually,” Johnny continued, taking his turn at attempting to explain.
“Then someone standardized the process in order to make them easier to build,
and suddenly we all end up living in cookie cutter houses. And with modern
automation came mass-produced goods. To produce such goods, tasks were broken
up into simplistic little blocks so that the people who were put into their roles
could be interchangeable. Of course, to buy the standardized products made by
standardized workers, the system needed standardized consumers. It didn’t do
any good to mass-produce an item when you had many people desiring many
different things. So you needed to market to the masses, create a common desire
for everyone. And since the whole concept was predicated on the idea that mass
production called for mass consumption, material goods were sold as the cure
for all our ills. Have a headache? Take an aspirin. Insecure about your place
in the world? Buy a fancy car. Tired from working too much? Take a pill or buy
a comfy chair to relax in.
“And since manufactured goods
were what our paradigm did well,” again inserting his own perspective, Johnny
added, “questions
of spirituality were of little use. What good was meditation or contemplation
or prayer when the real problems of the world were halitosis and waxy yellow
build up?”[L30]
[L1]Something
very large can somehow be unnoticed. A recurring motif.
[L2] While I always write
from a restricted point of view, I occasionally like to intermingle author
Point of View with character POV. Here I try to give it a cinematic effect,
having the camera slowly swoop in from an establishing shot into a more
personal view.
[L3]I
appreciate work done not just for a paycheck but done with legitimate passion
and pride. And ambition. People seemed to make things with an eye to the future
back then, now they make things with an eye towards profit. This is me saying I
have pride in what I make, I have an obligation to those who have taught me my
trade. Of course, it also applies to the characters in the book, who are
looking for a connection to truth and not merely trying to fit in to the
environment they find themselves in.
[L4]A
reintroduction to characters from the last book.
[L5]A
personal rejection of what is popular in favor of what is enduring.
[L6]Like
the evergreens, we see something that was once in its prime, yet is still
impressive in advanced age.
[L7]Magic,
a major motif in the book and the series.
[L8]A
lesser motif (something so big and yet unseen) and a larger motif (magic)
merged.
[L9]Escape,
another major motif, related to magic.
[L10]Again,
something that is in plain view and should be obvious is not noticed.
[L11]I’m
not sure why I included this but I liked it. I think when writing, one does not
have to know why something effects one the way it does.
[L12]The
distance that television provides is ?
[L13]Russell
is the first casualty shown of what can happen to one who strays too far out
from the safety of the herd mentality.
[L14]I’m
not a hundred percent sure if Dave and Mindy should trust Doug at this point.
Therefore I’m playing his character as a little vague, and yet always having
perfectly logical reasons for his vagueness.
[L15]It
is so easy for us to find simple answers to complex problems that we don’t want
to let go of them even when the answers we hold are not only insufficient but
actively harming us.
[L16]Unlike
typical books dealing with magic, each of the characters in this book have a
power that deals only with perception. Nobody can make a twig turn into a
snake, or levitate things with their mind. Rather, it is the power we as human
beings acquire as a result of seeing life more perfectly.
[L17]Seeing
beyond the times and attitudes that surround you can give you power that others
do not comprehend. It is not in their universe. Plato’s allegory of the cave,
which shall be discussed.
[L18]Mindy
has experienced everything Dave has, but she does not consider the idea that
having perceived she too will acquire abilities as a result of perception.
[L19]Fear
is the natural barrier to understanding.
[L20]As
soon as we believe we understand a person or an object or an idea, we cease to
question it. It has become a static thing rather than a dynamic one. And in
reality, there is no such thing as static. Nor is there such a thing as a
complete understanding of anything.
[L21]After
three books, I see that choosing current day oddity of thought might not be the
easiest way to get my point across. In my book, Seven Stones, I deal with the
same issue in the year 1913, where it is really easy to point out the
absurdities that people of a certain era can ascribe to. Unfortunately, it’s
easier to see such things in others than see it in ourselves or our times.
[L22]Consciousness
exists on a group level as well as an individual level. We tend not to admit
that. So much of who we are depends upon what the group we are in determines we
should be.
[L23]A
fool’s paradise does not last, and we are all fools compared to a universe as
vast as ours.
[L24]Group
think. Also relates to the idea of ruts from the last book, Perchance To Dream.
[L25]Johnny’s
opinion stems from the fact that he’s always considered himself an outsider.
[L26]How
many people have been killed because they happen to perceive the world somewhat
differently than the ruling class does? Sometimes those distinctions can be
quite tiny.
[L27]Our
current world is more homogenous than at any time in our history. The reasons
for this are: 1. We are more alienated from the natural world, thereby
stripping us of the common sense needed to live in that world. 2. The success
of capitalism is unlike anything seen before. Never before in our history has
so much changed with so little thought. 3. Mass communication has been able to
propagandize us in a way before undreamed of.
[L28]I
don’t think it’s possible to overestimate the power that advertisement has had
on shaping our behaviors. The new field of psychology revolutionized
propaganda.
[L29]The
old story of the three blind men describing an elephant by the part they were
able to feel.
[L30]The
mass media does not mention spirituality. Why would it? Who would profit from
such a discussion?
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